Introduction. The article discusses the current problems of improving the criminal legislation of the Russian Federation in the field of combating environmental crimes. The article analyzes the specifics of the legal regulation of responsibility for environmental crimes, as stipulated in Chapter 26 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The purpose of the article is to analyze the problems of legal regulation and law enforcement practice in the field of environmental crimes, as well as to develop proposals for improving criminal legislation in this area. To achieve this goal, the following tasks are solved in the article: analysis of the current criminal legislation of the Russian Federation regulating responsibility for environmental crimes; identification of the main problems of law enforcement practice; study of issues of differentiation of criminal and administrative responsibility for environmental offenses; formulation of proposals for improving criminal legislation in this area. Materials and methods. The published practice of the courts of the Russian Federation and the sociological and criminological data contained in the works of scientists working on the problems of environmental crime were used for the analysis. The work was based on a general scientific dialectical approach to the consideration of the object and subject of research using general and special methods of scientific knowledge, such as comparative law, normative, statistical, systematic, formal logic, modeling, expert assessments, sociological, etc. Research results, discussions. The analysis shows that despite the existence of a significant number of standards aimed at environmental protection, the effectiveness of their application remains insufficient. The article pays special attention to the difficulties of proving environmental crimes, the blank nature of the relevant criminal law norms, as well as the problem of distinguishing criminal and administrative responsibility for environmental offenses. Some contradictions in the terminology of criminal and sectoral legislation have been identified, making it difficult to qualify environmental crimes. Conclusion. Based on the analysis, proposals have been formulated to improve criminal legislation and improve the effectiveness of legal environmental protection. In order to reduce the negative impact of blank dispositions on the norms providing for liability for environmental crimes, the expediency of introducing a norm into the Special Part of the Criminal Code has been proved, according to which references to laws are allowed in blank dispositions of environmental compositions of the Special part of the Criminal Code.